


Mercy on the Man

by lori (zakhad), zakhad



Series: Captain and Counselor, the revised versions [16]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-24 02:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18561685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: New for the revised series. Rather than work it into any of the stories, I'll let it stand on its own. If you're confused, it's coz you stepped into a series without reading the first 15 stories.Will apologizes for his reaction to Deanna being with Jean-Luc. And introduces his new girlfriend to them.





	Mercy on the Man

Ayez pitié de l’homme qui a peur  
Prenez-lui la main quand il pleure  
Amenez-le doucement danser  
Jusqu’au petit matin  
Donnez-lui le goût de croire  
Que tout va bien

(Have mercy on the man who is afraid  
Take his hand when he cries  
Take him gently dance  
Until the early morning  
Give him the taste to believe  
That everything's OK)

 

When he received the subspace call, Will Riker was on the bridge. He retreated to his ready room and brought it up on the monitor. And there she was -- the woman he hadn't seen in months. Her hair was different, not as curly and less volume, but shoulder-length. She sat at the desk with her hands on the surface in front of her, looking into the screen with a serious expression.

"Will," she said simply -- not happy, but not upset. "I'm sorry that I didn't get back to you sooner."

"I'm sure you are as busy as we are, if not busier." The fleet was spread thinner than ever before. But he wasn't there to rehash all of that. "I've done a lot of thinking since the last time you contacted me. I wanted to apologize, for being dismissive before. But I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. I was sure it wouldn't end well if I tried."

Her pained look was brief, thankfully. She looked down. "How are you?"

"Better. I'd like to say I'm good, but I can't do that yet. I know you want to be friends again, but I don't know if I can do that."

He thought she might say something along the lines of relationships being difficult, that many couples never made it back to friendship, simply parted and moved on. But they had been different -- friends, for a long time, sometimes flirting with more than friends but always swinging back to platonic. They had already made that change. So he expected her to reaffirm what they already knew. She didn't meet his expectations. 

"You should do as you please," Deanna said simply, with a diffident tone that confirmed it -- he had damaged their friendship more than he'd thought. Jean-Luc had pushed him to talk to her, which should have told him all he needed to know about how she'd reacted to his attempts to cool off and not lose his temper again.

Will inhaled, thinking quickly, leaning back in his chair to appear relaxed even though he knew what he said would mean the difference between more damage, and possibly starting to make repairs. "I'm going to be at starbase 195 in a day. I'd like to see you, if we can manage it -- is the  _Enterprise_ anywhere close? Because I'd rather talk in person. Subspace isn't doing us any favors."

He couldn't tell via subspace how she was reacting; her expression didn't change but that meant little. Her tone was still even, calm, no giveaway. "We're due at starbase 197 for repairs in half a day. Our aft pylon was hit in a skirmish. Geordi says we will be there for four days. That's within easy range, if you are able to take a day off."

"I'll give my crew leave, and take a shuttle."

Finally a smile, for his efforts. "We'll look forward to seeing you."

"I'm bringing someone with me. I want you to meet her."

Her happiness might have been relief, he suspected as much, but it was promising that she could be happy for him at all. "I'm looking forward to it."

 

* * *

 

"Let's go," he said, rising from the pilot's chair. 

Bell sat in the chair at sensors, wearing her uniform. She took his offered hand, followed him out of the shuttle, and Will led her across the main shuttle bay of the  _Enterprise_ toward the exit. 

The door opened as they approached it, and there he was -- Captain Picard. "Will," he called out happily. 

"Hey," Will replied, coming to a stop as they met in the middle. "Lieutenant-Commander Christabel Sumners, this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard."

"A pleasure to meet you," Bell exclaimed, reaching out to shake the hand that Jean-Luc extended. But he caught her hand and brought it up to kiss it, instead of shaking it, smiling at her with genuine happiness in his eyes.

"The pleasure is all mine," Jean-Luc said. He was smiling, looking in her eyes, being charming -- Will almost took umbrage, but then realized what was happening. Bell was being welcomed to the family. 

"It's an honor to meet you, Captain," Bell went on. She'd been nervous about meeting him, but his warm welcome had gone a long way. 

"Shall we adjourn to someplace more comfortable?"

Will put an arm around Bell as they followed their host out of the shuttle bay. "Ten Forward?"

"I have a bottle of wine in my quarters."

"Will told me about your winery," Bell said, as they moved into a turbolift. 

"Deck eight," Jean-Luc said. He smiled again at Bell. "We just received a case of wine from my winery -- it's been a good year, for the grapes. How have things been for you and the  _Lexington_?"

"Almost as busy as you've been," Will said. They'd spent a fair amount of the past few months at high warp, rescuing colonists or dealing with squabbles on borders -- the kinds of missions that Admiral Tokenay called 'putting out fires.' He exchanged a look with Bell; she'd been busy as well, for all she was a nurse in his sickbay and not typically on away missions. "Data hinted that you were off ship for a while, on some assignment?"

It was enough to dampen his old friend's enthusiasm, but didn't entirely vanish the smile. Jean-Luc harrumphed quietly, and then the lift opened and they were walking toward the captain's quarters. He expected to see Deanna when they went in, but the living area was empty. Will glanced around, noting the changes since his last visit. Picard had never been one for pictures, had never put up family shots or documentation that he'd ever had a life before the  _Enterprise_ other than the occasional relic of some archaeological endeavor. But there was a picture now, a larger framed one sitting up on the end table in the corner at the far end of the sofa. Deanna, standing with him, both out of uniform and smiling at whoever had taken it. It looked like a night out.

"I expect Deanna will be along any time," Jean-Luc said, picking the wine bottle off the table and holding it up. "Ms. Sumners, would you care for a glass of Merlot?"

"I would, thank you," Bell said with a grin. "Please call me Bell. Everyone does. You are from France?"

"My family is, yes. I grew up in a small town called LaBarre. Do you have family on Earth?"

"In British Columbia. My mother and siblings are still there." Bell's warm brown eyes met Will's; she seemed to be questioning, and he realized he'd been quieter than she expected. He'd told her he intended to talk to his friends about a misunderstanding that had come up, to prepare her for any tension that might come up while she was there.

"Unlike me, she still speaks to her family," Will said as he accepted a glass of wine from their host.

Jean-Luc turned back to pour some for himself. "Are they also in Starfleet?"

"No, my mother owns a restaurant, and my sisters have families. Do you have family?"

"Only in Starfleet," Jean-Luc said, holding out his glass for a toast. "To friends, and family."

"Here, here." Will brought the wine to his lips. Merlot wasn't his favorite, but it was a good one, he supposed. "Where'd you have the picture taken?" He pointed at the one on the end table.

He half-expected deflection. Bell's eyes went to the picture, and Jean-Luc smiled, as if it prompted a happy memory. "That was after one of the concerts in Ten Forward. Malia's husband brought a holo-camera for the event and sent us that one."

"That's Deanna?" Bell went closer to have a look at it. "She's beautiful."

It was disconcerting to hear her say it, even though it was the obvious and polite thing to say. Will sipped his wine and wondered if this had truly been a good idea. Perhaps it was too much -- perhaps he should have come alone, though he hadn't wanted to take off for days without her either. They hadn't been together long, and he anticipated they would be, if all went well. He wanted to settle the tension with Deanna and be on good terms with her again, so spending time with friends could also be a habit. He had missed the  _Enterprise_ acutely, almost from the moment he'd left her.

"Do you still play?" Will asked, hoping to deflect the discussion. 

For an answer Jean-Luc went to the bookcase behind the desk and retrieved his flute. "I've got some work to do, Data is helping me by transposing the Listz piece into the appropriate key but I need to practice."

"What kind of flute is it?" Bell took it as it was offered and studied it -- there were markings on the flute in a dead language, and Will thought about the probe and how he had obtained the Ressikan flute. It had taken weeks for Jean-Luc to begin to talk about it with them. 

"There's a long story behind that flute. It was in a probe that we found, while exploring a new sector of space. I was subjected to living out years on a planet called Kataan."

"Years?" Bell exclaimed, disbelieving. 

They were sitting on the couch listening to the retelling of the story when Deanna arrived, in a white gi and jogging in -- she stopped and looked frustrated, her face glistening with sweat, hair sticking to her forehead and temples. "I'm so sorry," she said, reaching up to pull her hair back. "The class ran overtime -- I lost track of time."

"No worries, he was just about to play a song for us," Will said. "This is Christabel Sumners. Bell, this is Deanna Troi."

"It's so nice to meet you," Deanna said, coming over to take Bell's hand. She smiled warmly, waved her hand and looked down at herself. "I'll be right back, I need to change out of this."

"No hurry on my account, we have all evening," Bell said. She sat down again as Deanna shot a smile at Will and ran for the bedroom.

"She teaches mok'bara," Jean-Luc said. "I think this was her cadet class. They ask a lot of questions."

"What is mok'bara?" Bell asked. She leaned to pick up her wine glass again.

"It's a Klingon martial art -- she's been taking classes since she came aboard the  _Enterprise_. Do you still practice martial arts, Will?" 

"Haven't in a while, it's been busy enough that I haven't worked out my schedule."

"I guess I complicated your life, taking up some of that free time," Bell said with a silly grin. "You could be punching people, instead of having dinner with me."

"Not really a tough choice." Will gave her the silly grin right back. 

Deanna returned, wearing a dress in a lovely shade of sapphire that suited her and showed off her figure nicely. Jean-Luc set aside the flute and got up to fetch the wine for her, and she took his place on the sofa next to Bell. "So how long have you known Will? He's said nothing about you, so this is a pleasant surprise," Deanna said with a cheerful smile.

Bell shot an anxious glance at Will. He understood completely -- they hadn't precisely been standard issue, in that department. "We met before she came aboard, actually."

"Which was a weird sort of thing," Bell said. "Because I didn't realize I would be assigned to the  _Lexington_ when we met. It was nice to find out that I would see him again so soon."

Will noticed Deanna's expression become a subdued study in mixed emotions, as no doubt she could tell that was hedging. Bell was trying to help, but she wasn't accounting for the empathy. A common error folks made. 

He had met Bell and had a one night stand, and run into her on the ship the following day -- they hadn't been in uniform, hadn't exchanged names even, had sex, and then he had greeted the three new crew only to find she was one of them. And had a serious chat with her, about not wanting to make it uncomfortable for her, and she'd stayed instead of transferring. Meeting for dinner a couple of times and having conversations had led to spending more time together. She'd been the first one he had opened up to about the situation with Deanna and Jean-Luc, and she'd understood how awkward it had been for him, helped him sort out what he wanted to do about it. 

"So how did the big mission go, the one you were off the ship for a month?" Will asked of Deanna, with a smile. Bell glanced at him with wide eyes. 

"Not quite a month. It went as well as it could, I think. As well as it ever does with the Romulans." Jean-Luc glanced at Deanna, as he answered in her stead. "There were some complications."

"We're not supposed to talk about it," Deanna said, chiding with an amused smile. When she gazed at Jean-Luc, it was as though someone had hooked her up to the warp engines -- she adored him, no two ways about it. And Jean-Luc was returning that feeling without flinching, without caring that they had an audience. 

It was obvious to Will that they were very comfortable with each other. Jean-Luc looked different; before he'd left the  _Enterprise_ Will had wondered if his former captain would be retiring completely, he'd looked so tired and downhearted. At the moment Jean-Luc appeared to be at ease, holding a wine glass and sitting close to Deanna -- his posture was as upright as usual but he seemed quite comfortable having Deanna close enough to touch. They were settled, Will thought -- no anxiety in him, with her. 

"Complications but you're not still in sickbay, that says it all," Will said with a grin. "So, does your mother know about this yet?"

"Mother has been busy on diplomatic missions," Deanna said. "I've come close to telling her, but I think I'll wait until she's back home on Betazed. Out of consideration for the crew of whatever vessel she's been on -- the last time I spoke to her, she was aboard the  _Ni Var_."

"A Vulcan vessel?" Jean-Luc said, bemused. He got up to put the empty wine bottle in to be recycled and retrieved another bottle from behind his desk.

"Mother likes Vulcans. She finds them a soothing species to associate with," Deanna said. "And they have been active in diplomatic endeavors, since the end of the war."

"Do you think she'll be upset?" Bell asked. 

Deanna wasn't smiling any more. "I think she'll be excited. I'd rather talk to her in person so she doesn't inundate us with messages about everything she's doing to plan a wedding."

"Oh -- " Jean-Luc fumbled in the attempt to remove a cork. 

"We're not planning a wedding," Deanna said to Bell. "Mother wouldn't care -- I think she's been planning my wedding for years, sometimes she hints at it -- she shows me floral arrangements and comments that they would be perfect for a wedding, or some other decoration or setting. She's favored all manner of locations for my wedding over the years. So if you need suggestions I have a whole list," she said with a grin. 

"Uh," Bell said, glancing at Will.

"Not there yet either," Will said, holding up a hand to fend it off.

"Why would she plan a wedding before you're engaged?" Jean-Luc asked, coming back to pour wine into emptied glasses. 

"She's also suggested potential grooms. I don't mention those to you for the obvious reasons." Deanna watched him return with a fond smile. "I anticipate there will be a shift in focus -- she'll start planning for the day I have her first grandchild, whether I tell her I intend to have one or not. She might send you encouragement, which I know you would tolerate with your usual patience with her."

"Lwaxana likes him," Will added, grinning. 

"Your mother is Lwaxana Troi?" Bell sipped the wine. "I think I've met her once, she stopped at the starbase briefly."

"Unsurprising," Deanna said. "She loves meeting people. She especially enjoys good listeners."

The computer sounded the arrival of a new guest -- from the look they exchanged, neither of their hosts expected anyone. Jean-Luc set down the bottle on the coffee table and turned as he told the computer to admit the person.

Will was shocked when a smaller-than-expected person raced into the room and wrapped herself around Jean-Luc's leg. "Uncle Captain!"

"Lindy," Deanna said, grinning. 

Jean-Luc bent his head to look down at the giggling kid he was wearing. He was calmer than Will had expected. "You know, I think I'll head off to sickbay, it seems I need to have something removed."

"Noooooooooo!" Lindy cried, giggling more.

Another chime, and this time an adult came in. "I'm sorry, Captain -- Lindy, come on! This is not where we need to go!" The little girl needed some coaxing, but finally let go and left with the young woman who probably worked in the school. 

"How sweet," Bell exclaimed. "She obviously adores you."

Jean-Luc waved his hand, scoffing at the sentiment, but he had that smile that said he liked the kid too. He returned to sit next to Deanna, who watched him with a smirk that suggested she knew why. 

"Are you getting to know the kids now?" Will asked. "That's great. I remember when you didn't want anything to do with them."

"Evolution is possible for even the elderly," Jean-Luc said. He was joking, but Deanna didn't like it -- she eyed him briefly, but redirected her attention to her wine.

"Don't be ridiculous," Bell said. "If you weren't adaptable you wouldn't still be in Starfleet. Things have changed so much, it's amazing we don't have more people dropping out of service."

It was a conversation he'd had with Bell already, and with Jean-Luc. Deanna said, "What changes have you seen?"

"It was hard to transfer," Bell said. She drank a little more wine, rolling her eyes. "I was on a starbase for six months, trying to find ship duty -- you think with all the talk about low recruitment levels that they would be happy to help me find a sickbay on a ship. But it took months. I see on the public news channels they are building ships."

"Are you taking cadets?" Jean-Luc asked. 

"I have ten of them," Will said. "It's more work but it seems to me we need to get some decent officers trained. She's right, they build ships, but the launches aren't happening often enough."

Deanna gave Jean-Luc a meaningful look as if something she'd said was now proven. He sighed into his wine glass.

"Are we expecting anyone else for dinner?" Will asked. 

"No -- would you like to start? I know I'm a little hungry, and this is going to my head," Deanna said.

It prompted the replication of meals, and setting the table. Will noticed that the happy couple were eating the same meal, and thought it looked Betazoid. Bell glanced at him with questions dancing in her eyes, and he knew what she was asking -- he'd intended to find the time to chat with Deanna one on one, and it hadn't happened yet. He sat down and decided to wait until after dessert to bring it up. 

"Will's told me a lot about life on the  _Enterprise_ but he said I should get to know you all on my own," Bell said as she picked up her fork. She seemed a little less nervous, now that they'd spent some time with them. "So he hasn't said a lot about you. But you're the counselor?"

"Yes," Deanna said. "I'm generally very busy. We have two other counselors aboard."

"She's also helping the first officer design some coursework to help the cadets adjust and make the most of their stay," Jean-Luc said. Bragging -- Will smiled at the note of pride in his voice. "And did I mention the karate class?"

"You have yet to join the class," she said, teasing.

"I don't have time -- _someone_ filled my schedule with meetings with cadets," he complained, with a mercenary grin.

"Something tells me you spend plenty of time together," Bell said. "What kinds of things do you for fun?"

"Other than the holodeck? We have games," Deanna said, deadpan and hardly showing signs of cracking. "Chess, checkers. Kadis kot. We read a lot. He plays his flute."

"Occasionally, we take a walk. Talk to people." Jean-Luc gestured vaguely with his right hand. "You know."

Bell chuckled at herself. "Right. Silly me."

"He doesn't like it when I tell people what we really do in front of him." Deanna shrugged and kept eating.

Bell gave Will a look, and he shrugged. "Brag about me all you like."

"Hopefully after we finish eating?" Jean-Luc proved how far he'd come, by smiling and moving on. "I would tell you all about the trip I have coming up, that she is insisting I take -- but if you are as uninterested in archaeology as she, it might be more entertaining for us to know what you enjoy doing. Perhaps we could have a game of poker?"

"What trip?" Will asked.

"An old friend invited me to a dig -- a mining colony called Zanzibar found some signs of a previous occupation. We'll be working on excavating some old buildings to see what we can find. You're welcome to join, I'll be there for a couple of weeks." He was excited about it. Nothing quite like finding old civilizations that were long gone, to put that light in his eyes. "Though it's going to be primitive, camping out and relying on rations."

"As much as I'd like to go with you, our next assignment will be a patrol on the Neutral Zone. Evidently there's been more activity than previously noted by Shelby. I should be aboard."

"Has there been a confrontation?" Deanna asked. Curious, that she would be so serious.

"I was told the  _Potemkin_ ran into a warbird -- had words with Commander Sela. They were looking for defectors, which happens every so often but hasn't happened in a while. So maybe we'll pick up some passengers." The look they gave each other suggested they knew more about that. "You heard about it? I know you patrol it every so often as well."

Deanna kept looking at Jean-Luc, as if expecting something. The older man shook his head. "Realize that this is not for sharing," he said. "But we were there. I spoke to Sela. We were bringing people out of the Empire."

"Oh." Now that he'd mentioned being somewhat in the loop, details. "You were the ones who retrieved M'Ret's wife."

"Among others. I hope they don't ask me to do anything like that again," Deanna said darkly. She glared at her vegetables as if they'd suggested it. 

"Do you have a poker game running on your ship, Will?" 

Jean-Luc's change of subject worked, and they finished dinner chatting about innocuous topics. And then after the dishes were dealt with, Bell turned to Jean-Luc, and proved she'd dealt with her own nervousness about being there. "You should show me something about the  _Enterprise_ that I don't know, so they can talk."

"I should," Jean-Luc said, raising his eyebrows and gesturing at the door. Bell followed him out, giving Will a wave as she went, and then they were gone. 

Will turned -- he'd been heading across to the sofa again, and Deanna had been dropping the last glass back into the slot. "That was sudden."

"Do you still want to talk?" Deanna stood there, arms at her side, and he had the impression she was ready for anything. Tense, but standing loosely as if it were a martial arts tournament and she needed to leap in any direction.

"I do."

This time, he sat closer to her and facing her, turned toward her, and she did the same. Without Bell and Jean-Luc in the room to distract they were forced to look directly at each other, and she watched his face, expectant. 

"I was being irrational, and petty. I'm sorry," he said, keeping it to that very simple and straightforward admission, at least at first. He hoped it wouldn't require anything further, but knew that expecting her to just accept it and move on was ridiculous. She was a therapist after all.

But she surprised him. "All right," she said, and sat there gazing at him with her wide, sober eyes. 

"I guess I had an idea... leaving was hard," he confessed. "You know what the  _Enterprise_ meant to me. You know how being here was -- this was home, and it was harder than I anticipated to go. I wavered right up to the bitter end, but.... I guess you actually did me a favor by rejecting me. Because I'm not sure I could have gone, if I hadn't been so angry."

That surprised her a bit. "You've been missed," she said. "I missed you."

"I surprised myself, with Bell. She's been a good friend, and more. But the rest of the crew -- I know it takes time to build relationships with people and I have to give it time, but you don't get to have something like that twice," he said, thinking about the way it had been. The moments that surfaced weren't the missions -- it was Ten Forward, poker games, having adventures on the holodeck, talking to Captain Picard in his ready room, that he remembered when he thought about the 1701-D. Moving to the E had shifted the atmosphere aboard the ship, but not too drastically. 

"I know what you mean." Her eyes had begun to take on the glassy look of sadness and distress that he'd always hated to see. "I was so happy to see Beverly again, so was he. Data misses both of you, though he doesn't show it as much. Sometimes I walk on the bridge and expect to see you sitting there with him."

"I walk on my own bridge, and feel out of place," he confessed. Something he hadn't said at all to anyone, even Bell. "It's not home. It's just a job."

Deanna nodded, looking down at her lap. 

"It's nice to see you so happy with him," he said quietly.

A fleeting smile, so not quite there yet. "I like Bell. But I wonder."

"It's hard to just fall into it, there's a lot to getting to know someone -- and it was an awkward start for us. A very odd thing. We met in a bar on the starbase. There was this immediate charge to it, that led to -- you don't know how shocked I was, seeing her in uniform in my ready room, reporting for duty. I didn't even know her name til then."

That was surprising to her. She tilted her head, puzzled. 

"But I think it's a good fit. I think we'll get there. Because if there's one thing I learned while I was aboard the  _Enterprise_ , patience and curiosity make relationships more than suspicion and doubt. It was true in diplomacy and it's been true in friendships. Look at what happened with Data and almost everyone he met."

"I'm sorry, that I lost it and shouted at you," she said, bringing them back around to the reason they were there. This time there was a resonance in it that he hadn't seen before. 

Will held out his hands, submitting to the reality of what had happened. "I'm sorry I lost it as well. Not my finest moment."

"I'm sorry that I couldn't be what you needed me to be," she went on, very quietly. "I hope you know that we will always be your friends."

The finality of the sentiment felt like a spike through the chest. He nodded, giving himself a chance to gather himself up and not be choked up when he responded. "You know that I will always be there for you, either of you."

And, he knew as they moved forward into an embrace that his emotions would take a while to stop the dance of the rejected heartbreak -- he still had moments when he remembered being the one she ran to, the one she laughed with, probably the only one Counselor Troi really shared her innermost thoughts with, but like the rest of the family from the  _Enterprise_ , she had changed -- become more than she had been.

"We should go find them," she said, driving the final nail in the coffin lid.

He smiled -- rueful, probably -- and turned at the waist to point at the picture on the end table in the corner. "That's a good picture of you."

Finally, she smiled. "He's been very, very good to me, Will. I -- "

He knew she drew up short of confessing more because of the lurch in his belly, at hearing the love in her voice, the joy, and told himself that would pass. Told himself that it was normal to have residual sorts of shreds of feelings, because he'd lived through heartbreak a few times before. But the worst part would be her reaction to those tiny tugs at his heart.

"I'll be okay, just roll with it," he said roughly. "Because you have every right to be as happy as he makes you."

It was similar to when she'd been with Worf. She looked away, but her head turned back after a moment. Her eyes fixed on his. "I know you know that I know," she said, with a sly smile that said she remembered the sentiment from the times she'd said it before, "how emotions are, and how it goes. So you'll do what you need to do and be happy as well. I hope that it works out with Bell -- she's wonderful. Jean-Luc likes her, and I know you wouldn't want to disappoint him."

Her tease made him smile. "So you think I have a shot at officiating at your wedding?"

She rolled her eyes with comic exaggeration, and stood up, turning for the door. "As much as anyone, at this point."

"He may have his own ideas about it." Will followed her, but she stopped before reaching the range of the door sensor. "Is that a sensitive topic?"

"We haven't talked about it. He doesn't speak to think, it's the other way around. And I don't really know if he wants to, at this point." Sadness looked lovely on her, but it was alarming to see it as she talked about this.

"I thought everything was going well -- he's happy, and no question about how he feels about you, why wouldn't he? He's a traditionalist at heart."

"You're right," she said, shaking her head. "It was just so -- sad, he was so tired and done with the way things are now in Starfleet. It isn't really about us that I'm sad, it's because I was seeing Captain Picard losing his enthusiasm for the work, and while he seems to have recovered somewhat it still feels.... I don't know, Will, forget I said anything. I guess I'm just worrying about something I can't fix." She turned for the door again and they walked out into the empty corridor. 

"You talk about him like he's two people." Will snorted. "But you'd have to, sometimes, to keep working with him."

"Yes." Deanna entered the turbo lift at the end of the corridor. 

"He's a lot different than he is on the bridge, I bet."

She gave him an insulted look. "Will!"

"He can't be the same -- you aren't about to take orders in the bedroom."

"Stop it." But there was a little twitch at the corner of her lips. "Computer, deck ten."

"A woman of refined tastes," he said, grinning at the wall. 

"You brought Bell with you, so you might have a care for how far you go," she said. 

They were in a holodeck, which surprised him, and he was surprised again when they walked into the simulation in progress and found themselves in a yard, outside a house that looked Terran. Deanna headed for the front door at once as if she had been there often and was right at home. 

Will followed her and found himself in a room full of furniture, a fireplace at the far end, pictures on the walls -- he looked around but mostly at the man in uniform, standing at a curio cabinet tucked in the corner to the right of the door, showing Bell some of the things inside. Jean-Luc stepped back from it as Deanna approached and held out an arm, welcoming her with a touch of the shoulder, beaming at her.

"Cygne. I was just showing her Maman's collection of glasswork."

"It's beautiful," Bell exclaimed, holding up a blown-glass rose. Her eyes went to Will as she turned to show him. "He says these are at least three hundred years old. Have you seen these?"

"No, but they look pretty," Will said, coming to stand with her and examine the rose. He glanced around the room again -- this had to be a simulation of the Picard home. There were pictures on the walls of a very young Jean-Luc; even one of him in a cadet's uniform. He'd never in all the years he'd been Picard's first officer seen this place. 

Deanna, when he looked to her, was giving him a serious expression, as if waiting for acknowledgement that he understood. 

"So what's that," Will said, pointing at a very old firearm on the wall over the hearth. 

"That is a rifle, from the early 1800s -- a flintlock. My grandfather found it," Jean-Luc said, moving to take it from the wall. "A hologram of it, but a very accurate one. Here." He held it out for Will to come handle it. 

Will smiled, as he finished moving from the past into the present in order to join his former captain in his appreciation of the family heirloom. He wondered what other surprises were in store for them.


End file.
